Ganymede

Ganymede: D200400-7 IC, NI, Va

The site of several failed colony attempts, Ganymede isn’t a typical colony world. A no visit order was placed by the UNSF when large complex life and eco systems were found in the ocean depths deep beneath the ice of the planet. Despite this, a ramshackle array of spent ships and poorly constructed prefabs dot the surface of the planet. Some are habituated, most are not. The wide variety of water and organics make living on the world relatively easy. And regardless of edicts placed upon the planet it continues to see growth as a haven of various sorts. Displacement by the UNSF generally means a short stay in a UN cruiser before eventually returning to the jovian moon.

Full Thrust/Traveller Conversion

Full Thrust/Traveller Conversion

Synopsis: I like the granularity of Traveller but the system and weapons of Full Thrust.

• Ships are to be built to Traveller Rules with some minor errata changes.
• Hull and Structure translate to Hull strength and aligned as Hull first then Structure.
• M-Drive directly translates to main drive.
• Armor directly translates to Armor.
• Purchasing Fire Control for turrets is optional, however at least 1 fire control for the ship must be purchased. This is to hold with the Full Thrust aesthetic of FC groupings. Characters may man the Fire Control or the turret and stack mods according to complex actions.
• Weapon shots always "hit" in Full Thrust and are assumed to here as well. Characters may adjust fire of weaponry and every MoS (with the relevant skill roll) allows the players to modify a die by that amount. (A MoS of 3 allows the player to add 3 to any die under his control or any variation there in.) Modifying a roll like this to "6" does not cause a re-roll.
  
• Ships will use the Traveller rules for Warp drives. (This over rides the previous mention in travel times, which I will go back and edit. This somewhat fixes a strange flaw in Traveller where everything is on top of one another. This doesn't work well in our real stars universe where short distances are typically 3-4 Traveller hexes.) For example, A ship using a J-2 Scout traveling from Earth to Alpha Centauri (4.4ly) will take 15.4 days to get there. It needs to run its power plant the entire time and use twice the power plant's consumption (2t/week X 2 = 4t/week) + normal operations (2t/week) to get there. So it will use 6t/week or 13.2t total to arrive with its crew. This works out to an average early 1900s trans Atlantic voyage.
  
• Crew Casualty damage points in Full Thrust will translate to an Endurance check with every check beyond the first done at -2, then -4, then -6. Failed endurance Checks will get 1d6 damage. The ship will completely depressurize at the last damage track (and RP accordingly).
• Ships get 1 Damage control team per engineer on board, unless otherwise equipped and loose them per Full Thrust rules. PCs cannot automatically die this way but are affected by the Crew Casualty rolls.
  
• Turrets are translated as being the number of arcs they have. Triple turrets are a 3 arc. Doubles are a 2 arc, etc. Increasing beyond the 3 arc just increases the cost by 1MCr per arc to a maximum of 6 (360*). Unless noted, they are assumed to point forward.
• PDCs consume a hardpoint.
• All Beam weapons are assumed to be Particle based and 4MCr and double in cost for each strength higher. Strength 1 costs 4Mcr, Strength 2 costs 8Mcr, Strength 3 costs 16Mcr and so on.
• To prevent high energy-small boat shenanigans, a ship cannot fire more guns that the power plant rating. So a scout (type A plant) can only fire 1 lvl1 Beam. And a mercenary cruiser (type M plant) can fire a total of 13 (levels worth of beams) at once. PDS does not count toward the total.
• Pulse Torpedoes and Salvo Missiles are Bay weapons.
• Unless otherwise noted, the cost of all equipment is their Full Thrust point value in MCr.
• Each level of Screens has a base cost 50MCr and 50 tons and are considered TL12 for construction (see High Guard for how to get it into a TL11 ship).
  
• All Fighters for now are assumed to be 10t for Traveller ship design sake. (Accurate for Traveller light fighters, but Full Thrust starts breaking down in the sub 100t area and the translation becomes less clear. In fact, it doesn’t even make a distinction and generally assumes Kilotons in ship designs.)
• Fighters cost their Full Thrust point value in MCr. These are generic human designs, the F-4s of the galaxy. Ones with some quirks will be stated later.
• *This will all be edited as flaws become readily apparent.

Humanity! Fuck Yah.

New Campaign time! Inspired somewhat by the flurry of writing talent off of /TG/, here is a rough draft of what the new campaign will entail. I'm aiming for something between Syndicate Wars and Master And Commander with Humanity taking a role not unlike Orks in any other setting.

Afterall, even in the writing over in /TG/ humanity's glory moment seems to involve being able to run around and hit things.

Campaign concepts:

• Oxygen based life is somewhat rare. Intelligent species are generally Hydrogen Sulfide/Helium or Fluorine based around moons and cold worlds (-50f average temperature) that may not have liquid water and drink methane (-270F average temperature).

• A previous oxygen using life form called the Absalom once spanned human space that long ago died out. Many of their worlds are in various forms of terraforming decay but otherwise sit fallow due to their unpleasant environment to contemporary alien powers. They are nearly universally unvisited beyond enterprising human colonists.

• The vast majority of the interstellar community has been there for many millennia and are individually long lived if not faux immortal.

• Humanity is considered odd in that it is war like yet space borne, from a hot world, breathes a flammable corrosive gas, breeds quickly, and has an incredibly high metabolism. Beyond the curious coincidence in atmospheres to the Absalom, Alien opinions are that humans are best avoided like a disease.

• Another popular alien opinion stems from dinosaurs, which was the last time the planet was charted by The Community, and subsequently black listed. Though the term “Earth” is unfamiliar, referencing the planet’s galactic ID will incite speculation or outright horror as the asteroid that ended the Cretaceous period isn't widely known.
  

• Humanity is relatively small and just recently began exploring the universe (TL11). Earth is still balkanized into the predominate powers of the United States, The British Union, The French Commonwealth, Russian Federation, and The Peoples Republic of China. The year is 2331.

• The alien governments are largely disclosed to their own interests when not being enigmatic altogether. They generally shirk humans as being like a irritant rash that will go away when ignored.

• The unified front from which all species of the Milky Way act is called “The Community”. It is a representative council that overseas galactic trade and prevents conflicts from spilling over or causing irreparable harm to the galactic environment. In effect, it acts as a peace keeping force on a galactic scale. Humanity is considered a part of it by assumption though no formal representation has been established for various reasons, one of which being a mere conversation with the appointed representatives for new race relations at The Community governmental seat is rumored to take many human life times to complete.
  

• Though The Community has its own fleet, it is largely ceremonial in function. It typically out sources any activities it might deem necessary to be fulfilled. Most of which is fulfilled by the nearest community member capable of doing so in return for future credit among The Community.

• The local arm of the Galaxy is largely absent of concerted alien interests.
  

• Terraforming is active and an expanding part of human preoccupations and is done at great expense where it is possible, mostly in the form of reforming Absalom worlds. Mars has a semi breathe able atmosphere and is green in some places (lichens and shrubs, mostly) and contains large protected lakes. The moon plays host to extensive underground arcologies that provide relief to the workers of the immense ship yards that build the vast majority of human fleets.

• The solar system is considered the cradle of humanity and is nearly fully colonized throughout in one form or another in addition to Alpha Centuari, Lalande, and Barnard's Star.
  

• Aside from the immediate stellar local group known to humans, the galaxy is thinly populated with population centers being well regulated and limited to life supporting planets and artificial colonies. Vast tracts of space between colonized worlds and trade routes are virtually undocumented and rarely visited.
• Traders talk of a permanent Community outpost on a star charted as L674-15.
• The TAS is one of the few organizations that has made it beyond the local group and made great strides in human/alien relations in the form of hostels on different worlds and assistance for wayward travellers.
  

• FTL is done via warp drives and the Traveller rules cover this.

• Technology is otherwise very near future, cyber punk-ish, and Newtonian (no anti-grav). Most star ships cannot manage escaping gravity wells unassisted.

• Full Thrust will be used for ship to ship combat.

• It will be assumed the players will hire on mercenaries (or red shirts) and form ‘away teams’. They will be drawn from a recruitment deck of randomized stats. Their actions are player controlled up until they take damage or do something uncharacteristic. In which case they will make morale checks modified by their leader’s Social mod (or nothing in the event of comm. Blackout) and tactics skill.

And lastly, the real star map from which we will use. The + and - is how many light years off the galactic plane it is. And remember the distance formula is (x^2 + y^2)^0.5.

Let me know what you think!